Design for manufacturability, or DFM, is an integration of manufacturing data and design procedure for better yield and design efficiency. An interaction and communication between designer and manufacturer is enhanced thereby for more accurate, faster, and more efficient design. In one example, various manufacturing data are formulated, quantified, and integrated to enable collaboration between manufacturer and designer, reduce design time and design cost, and increase manufacturing yield and production performance. DFM can be realized at various design stages with collaboration of design tool vendors. For example, the manufacturer may include a semiconductor foundry. The designer may include an integrated circuit (IC) design house. The design tool vendor may include an electronic design automation (EDA) tool vendor.
However, a semiconductor manufacturer needs to provide multiple qualified processes with different criteria. Manufacturers, EDA tool vendors, intellectual property library vendors, and customers will take duplicate effort without sharing resources and there are no consistent results among customers.